Posted 9:01 AM by Scoobie Davis

Meta-Crashing

meta-crash
Pronunciation: mA-tà krash
Function: verb
Etymology: meta- plus Middle English crasschen
transitive sense
1 : to enter or attend an event devoted to crashing events without an invitation.

I recently found out that the premiere for the forthcoming film Wedding Crashers will be held in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theatre on July 13. It doesn't appear there will be an LA premiere.

That's okay that it's not in LA because I wasn't planning on crashing the premiere or the after-party. Those of you familiar with this blog might be surprised to hear that: What better party to crash than one devoted to the subject of crashing?

I'm way ahead of the curve on that one; earlier this month, I crashed the Wedding Crashers press junket held from June 10th through the 12th. I wasn't that interested in going; I wasn't that interested that much in the round robin of interviews with the cast and director (though I went to the Four Seasons on both the 11th and 12th) and I wasn't the least bit interested in hanging out with entertainment reporters at the press party at Hooter's (I had a much more compelling party to attend that evening; sorry, I can't give details).

I went because it would involve meta-crashing--a term I just coined to describe sneaking into events devoted to sneaking into events; plus I wanted to go to the press screening of the film. I expected this to be a formulaic Hollywood date film (think Hitch). To my pleasant surprise, it wasn't. I enjoyed the off-beat and dark humor (the film's writers wrote for the short-lived TV series The Trouble With Normal). The quirkiness of Wedding Crashers really won me over.

The protagonists (played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn) engage in some crashing behavior that, from a dharmic standpoint, I wouldn't have done. While it would be a bit of a stretch to call for a code of ethics for people who sneak into events in which they were not invited, I will--in an upcoming post--discuss the ethical aspects of crashing events.